The Depths of Windows Memory (Part 1) — The Moment a Virtual Address Becomes Physical RAM: A Page Fault from Start to Finish (archived 2026-08-30)

Abstract

This article connects VirtualAlloc, VADs, page tables, the TLB, demand-zero faults, and hard faults to explain the moment a virtual address is assigned physical RAM. Archived version of https://comcomponent.com/en/blog/windows-memory-internals-page-fault/, as published on 2026-08-30. The live article is maintained and may change after this date. First published 2026-08-20.